Sovietinės teisės suvokimas anglakalbėje kultūroje

Despite the fact that Soviet legal history was never very popular among Western scholars as general Soviet history was, different interpretations of Soviet law (negative, positive and neutral) formed within English speaking literature. Soviet legal studies reached their peak during the Cold War and after the collapse of USSR, the interest in this field decreased greatly, however, the investigations should not be abandoned by legal scholars, as it could serve to understand the legal reality in post-Soviet societies and to predict their nearest future too. The history of studying Soviet law in the West presents various political, social and personal factors, which influenced the establishment of diverse interpretations of Soviet law in Western scholarship. During the interwar period, Soviet legal studies lacked academic interest and were carried out by non-lawyers and few legal scholars. Among the first group of experts, a positive attitude towards Soviet law prevailed (Callcot, Laski, Pritt), while in the second, more sceptical and neutral voices were heard (Gsvoski, Zelitch, Hazard). During the years of the Cold War, Soviet legal studies enjoyed great popularity and financial support, especially in the United States, but they also had to face competition between two camps: critical “terrorists”, the majority of whom had Eastern European background and knew the Soviet political system from the inside (Gsvoski, Guins, Timashef, Grzybowski, Podgórecki, Simis), and the dispassioned “legalists”, represented by Westerners who were over-focused on the Soviet law in books and the comparative method of investigating Soviet law (Hazard, Berman, Butler, Barry, Ginsburgs, Feldbrugge, etc.).

Šiame straipsnyje apžvelgiama sovietinės teisės studijavimo anglakalbėje kultūroje istorija nuo komunistų atėjimo į valdžią Rusijoje iki Sovietų Sąjungos žlugimo prieš du dešimtmečius bei pristatomos mokslinėje teisės literatūroje greitai išryškėjusios skirtingos sovietinės teisės interpretacijos, dabartinės rusiškosios teisės suvokimą anglakalbėse šalyse lemiančios ir šiandien, taip pat analizuojamos jų susiformavimo priežastys ir pasekmės.